{"id":67392,"date":"2016-08-11T11:35:10","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T15:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=67392"},"modified":"2016-08-11T11:31:56","modified_gmt":"2016-08-11T15:31:56","slug":"the-usaf-is-short-pilots-and-maintenance-personnel-secaf-solution-raise-pilot-bonuses-and-pay-them-to-drone-drivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=67392","title":{"rendered":"The USAF Is Short Pilots and Maintenance Personnel. SECAF Solution? Raise Pilot Bonuses and Pay Them to Drone Drivers."},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonn mentioned this in an article earlier today<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 But I’ve got a bit of a different take on it than he did.<\/p>\n

Per this report from Fox News<\/a><\/em>, the USAF is short 700 pilots, and the SECAF expects the pilot shortage to increase to 1,000 over the next few years.\u00a0 The shortage is greatest among fighter pilots.<\/p>\n

The SECAF also indicated the service is short 4,000 mechanics.\u00a0 Both shortages are causing issues.<\/p>\n

Now, the reason given by the SECAF for the pilot shortage is that the current deployment cycle is causing lowered quality of life among pilots, causing many to leave the service.\u00a0 She also says that \u201cairlines are forecast to be hiring a lot more\u201d in the near-term future, which will make the problem worse soon.<\/p>\n

The SECAF\u2019s proposed solution?\u00a0 Increase the USAF pilot bonus to $35k annually \u2013 and pay that bonus to drone drivers also.<\/p>\n

Maybe raising the pilot bonus is necessary; maybe not.\u00a0 At this point,\u00a0I\u2019m not really convinced\u00a0 that that’s either necessary or will work.\u00a0 I’m willing to listen to a good argument – but I haven’t yet heard one.<\/p>\n

And maybe it’s just me, but from what the SECAF’s saying . . . I just don’t “get it”.<\/p>\n

Per the SECAF, the biggest current USAF shortage seems to be among fighter pilots.\u00a0 I thought airlines generally preferred to try and hire those with multi-engine ratings and experience flying larger aircraft – like C-17s and C-130s.\u00a0 Maybe I’m wrong.<\/p>\n

Plus, I need an explanation of how paying drone drivers a bonus would help.\u00a0 Aren’t many of them not rated to fly manned aircraft?\u00a0 And even if some RPA pilots are qualified to fly manned aircraft, doesn’t my question in the previous paragraph apply?\u00a0 Do airlines really go after RPA pilots?<\/p>\n

In short – is this bonus proposal by the SECAF something that might actually work?\u00a0 Or is it a “solution in search of a problem” that will suck up money but will do little or nothing to fix the actual problem at hand?\u00a0 At this point, I’m just not convinced it will work as advertised.<\/p>\n

If “quality of life issues due to multiple deployments” are driving this, it seems to me that a better solution to the pilot shortage problem might be for the USAF to simply train more pilots – then use some of those additional pilots to \u201cspell\u201d those who have done repeated deployments and\/or replace those who choose to depart.\u00a0 Alternatively, if instead it’s lack of flight time due to ground duty assignments that’s driving experienced pilots to “punch out” and leave the service . . . I’m not sure that a bigger bonus will work particularly well.<\/p>\n

Finally, I also don\u2019t see how increasing the pilot bonus will do a damn thing to cure the shortage in maintenance personnel.\u00a0 Someone needs to explain that one to me, too.\u00a0 Last time I checked, you can’t fly an aircraft that’s grounded due to lack of maintenance.<\/p>\n

Well, Madame SECAF?\u00a0 Could you perhaps enlighten us?\u00a0 What are we missing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonn mentioned this in an article earlier today.\u00a0 But I’ve got a bit of a different … The USAF Is Short Pilots and Maintenance Personnel. SECAF Solution? Raise Pilot Bonuses and Pay Them to Drone Drivers.<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-air-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}